I posted this in another thread, but the thing that stood out was the lower dosage levels (200mg vs. what I thought I remember as 500-1000mg doses - I could be wrong on this, just going from memory).
Death rate models have now doubled
- Thread starter zeke4ahs
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I posted this in another thread, but the thing that stood out was the lower dosage levels (200mg vs. what I thought I remember as 500-1000mg doses - I could be wrong on this, just going from memory).
I was reading this morning that Laguna Beach which is just south of Newport Beach has reopened with a similar format as the Jacksonville Florida beaches. The beach is open early in the morning for moving activities only. No umbrellas, no coolers, no chairs... if that is going to work, which I think is very reasonable, I think the authorities will need to have the power to just confiscate beach toys. Here in Fort Lauderdale I can walk to the beach in my bare feet. However there is a police cruiser at every entrance and the beaches are closed still until at least early June.
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It seems to me that baseball is something they can figure out. Maybe umpire from well behind the catcher or we’ll behind the pitcher for that matter. No lead offs so no need for the 1B to hold the bag...
Still have the problem of the ball and the catcher, but it seems like one that is more doable than something like basketball or football or soccer. Not sure that there are any great, foolproof solutions absent a test that can be administered and processed immediately before a game.
But the Professor was always able to build fancy stuff like radios from stray coconuts, so I'm sure that he could find a way to extract hydroxychloroquine from them. Gilligan would likely trip over the apparatus just as it was producing the product, though.
What? Dr. Fauci says that the new standard of care is remdesivir. Recent studies on remdesivir agree, and recent studies on HCQ ran a train through its prospects as a viable treatment for COVID-19.
How do you come to the conclusion that any form or dosage of HCQ is "the best there is"?
Like I said, I have been following various studies and sources directly. They are easy to find. They are incomplete, but I am an optimist. The remdesevir studies showed limited improvement in some studies. I hope those continue as well, but I am rooting for the other because of the ease of use and availability. You should, too.
I'm on staff at IU and I was told today to prepare to be working from home throughout the fall semester. It's not official, but I think if death rates keep rising it will be soon.
I've heard absolutely everything about what will happen in the fall regarding classes. I know we are supposed to track down any rooms that might be available for class use even if that class use is just online.
I was thinking more along the line of k-12 being open.
Hopefully we will be in a position where the colleges open in the fall but it sounds like IU at least is skeptical of that happening.
And, they could always perform their clinical trials on that fake gorilla that kept showing up. He was no Andy Serkis, was he?
The people dying are just collateral damage to his re-election. He’s not going to let their deaths get in the way of his campaign.
‘It’s irresponsible’: Washington state sees sudden rise in Covid parties
Gatherings held with the intent of catching, and overcoming, coronavirus are jeopardizing public health says state official
You can call them BYOC parties. That’s bring your own Covid-19.
Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington, are admonishing the sudden rise in so-called “Covid-19 parties” where non-infected guests mingle with those who have tested positive for the virus, ostensibly in hopes of speeding up the process of catching, and overcoming, the virus.
“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of Covid-19 parties occurring in our community, where non-infected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the county said in a press release Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, 94 people in the county have tested positive for Covid-19, including employees who worked at a nearby Tyson Fresh Meats plant who were infected.
Some of those cases can be linked back to parties, Meghan DeBolt, director of the county’s Department of Community Health, told the Walla Walla Bulletin.
“We don’t know when it is happening. It’s after the fact that we hear from cases. We ask about contacts, and there are 25 people because: ‘We were at a Covid party’.” She added: “It’s unacceptable. It’s irresponsible.”
Washington state, hit early and hard by the coronavirus, has tallied 15,185 cases and 834 deaths that have been attributed to the coronavirus.
Gatherings held with the intent of catching, and overcoming, coronavirus are jeopardizing public health says state official
You can call them BYOC parties. That’s bring your own Covid-19.
Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington, are admonishing the sudden rise in so-called “Covid-19 parties” where non-infected guests mingle with those who have tested positive for the virus, ostensibly in hopes of speeding up the process of catching, and overcoming, the virus.
“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of Covid-19 parties occurring in our community, where non-infected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the county said in a press release Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, 94 people in the county have tested positive for Covid-19, including employees who worked at a nearby Tyson Fresh Meats plant who were infected.
Some of those cases can be linked back to parties, Meghan DeBolt, director of the county’s Department of Community Health, told the Walla Walla Bulletin.
“We don’t know when it is happening. It’s after the fact that we hear from cases. We ask about contacts, and there are 25 people because: ‘We were at a Covid party’.” She added: “It’s unacceptable. It’s irresponsible.”
Washington state, hit early and hard by the coronavirus, has tallied 15,185 cases and 834 deaths that have been attributed to the coronavirus.
I am not one that believes Covid is a hoax, by any measure. That being said, when hospitals and doctors are financially incentivized to report deaths as Covid, over some other prevailing illness, it does raise a question.
An acquaintance (actually a friend of my business partner) had a wife who unfortunately died recently, and he strongly objected to the death certificate list cause of death as Coronavirus. She had multiple health issues, including stage 4 lung cancer. Her time on Earth was not long. She ultimately died of basically multi organ shutdown. When the death certificate was issued, it listed Coronavirus, and when he objected, they ultimately changed it. Through conversations with those who would know, it became clear, that the hospital would receive significantly more revenue through Medicare If coronavirus was listed. Something is wrong with that, and it certainly would give most reasonable people a reason to question the real numbers.
You should have seen Nashville, Brown County on Sunday. Every motorcycle within 100 miles must have made the ride. They were packed in the gas station lots and the Chocolate Moose lot. No one practicing social distancing. Everyone standing around in close proximity, hanging out together yuking it up. People walking up and down our sidewalks, no distancing or masks to be seen anywhere. I thought: Jesus, they're bringing the virus to us. We've managed to maintain a fairly low count here to this point, being such a remote, rural county. Based on this past weekend, I wouldn't be surprised to see Brown County spike within a week or so based on what I saw here. Oh, and the Governor was one of the contributors - popped into Hobknob Corner to pick up a carryout order and snapped a IG pic with some folks while he was there - no mask - no distancing. The HobKnob is my local place. Don't go there unless you're going to keep with the guidelines. This is one of our food sources here. That means you, Governor.
Yeah outdoor + using common sense practices doesn't seem to be high risk whatsoever.
Prolonged indoor confinement is the biggest challenge.... which for most of us is schools and work. I've seen mentioned the ideas that restaurants be approved for greatly expanded outdoor dining (using parking lots, certain streets, e.t.c).
I see returning to full scale office environments as a huge hurdle. Particularly in dense urban settings. Mass transit, high rise elevators, open office/ shared space design that is all the rage.
Schools have to be a huge concern.... even if the threat to the youngster is low.... it's not to their family. Will my kids just not see their grandparents for the next year+?
do you have kids?
LOL.
I have a 1 year old that trots around in our backyard and picked up a dog turd this week. I'm sure she'll be fine with a mask and social distancing.
President Trump has complained to advisers about the way coronavirus deaths are being calculated, suggesting the real numbers are actually lower — and a number of his senior aides share this view, according to sources with direct knowledge.
What's next: A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.
- The U.S. death toll has surpassed 71,000, with more than 1.2 million confirmed cases, according to the latest figures.
- Trump's engagement could amplify a partisan gulf we saw in this week's Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index over believing the death statistics.
Behind the scenes: The official said Trump has vented that the numbers seem inflated and has brought up New York's addition of more than 3,000 unconfirmed but suspected COVID-19 cases to its death toll.
- Some members of the president's team believe the government has created a distorting financial incentive for hospitals to identify coronavirus cases, the official also said.
- A second senior official said they shared this concern.
- Medicare is giving hospitals a 20% bonus for their treatment of coronavirus patients as a way to help them make up for the money they’re losing because they’ve had to postpone a lot of non-coronavirus care.
- Intentionally misdiagnosing patients with coronavirus would be fraud, and so far no one in the administration has publicly leveled such an accusation.
- "So he's expressed the need to properly convey that to American people so they're not startled by why numbers ticked up."
- Another senior administration official said this concern about the death count was not confined to Trump and was in fact shared by a number of his senior staff and has been a subject of discussion for weeks.
- "With something like this virus, where you've got this weird coagulation in the lungs ... we need more autopsies," the official said.
- "America's out of practice of how to deal with something like this and to report it accurately. ... We don't have uniform reporting standards in the United States or internationally. And we're not getting good data."
Between the lines: Until mid-April, a person was only identified as having died from the coronavirus if they had tested positive for the coronavirus and then died.
- But testing in the U.S. has been inadequate. Many people who have the virus weren’t able to get tested; those patients weren’t recorded as official coronavirus cases, and therefore weren’t counted as coronavirus deaths if they died.
- Last month, the Centers for Disease Control said it would include “probable” coronavirus deaths in the official tally — cases in which no formal diagnosis is available, but doctors believe a patient died from COVID-19.
- Some states do not report probable deaths to the CDC, but among those that do, the change did make a difference: Probable cases added roughly 3,700 people to New York’s official death toll.
- Testing problems persisted for so long and still persist.
- Some states don’t count probable deaths.
- There are still thousands of “excess deaths” even after accounting for probable coronavirus cases.
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Can you explain the financial incentives to report more Covid deaths?
I was speaking to an ER doctor friend about how muddy all the data is. He is in Texas and said the numbers are a joke because there is so little testing. He suggested that the only really reliable data is year over year deaths. For example, how many people in US died in April in the last 10 years? How many died in April 2020? When we look at these numbers, it certainly appears Covid deaths are actually significantly under reported.
"At least 46,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 14 countries shows — providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis. "
"These numbers undermine the notion that many people who have died from the virus may soon have died anyway. In Paris, more than twice the usual number of people have died each day, far more than the peak of a bad flu season. In New York City, the number has spiked to six times the normal amount.
The city has become the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States. More than 27,000 people have died since the beginning of March — 20,900 more than normal, and 4,200 more than have been captured by official death statistics."
Early lockdowns appeared to prevent excess deaths
In a handful of countries, including Norway and Denmark, there has been no clear sign of increased mortality this year. Demographers say this is due in part to a less severe flu season this winter — and because these countries implemented early, severe restrictions to slow the spread of the virus when their outbreaks were smaller and easier to contain.
Denmark announced a nationwide lockdown on March 11 before it had registered a single confirmed death. Norway announced a lockdown the next day, with just one confirmed death. In comparison to neighboring Sweden, which never implemented a national lockdown, Norway and Denmark have each recorded fewer than 500 Covid-19 deaths. Sweden has tallied over 2,500.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html
Diagnosis and care are coded for reimbursement rates from carriers. Always pick the one with the highest cost of treatment and reimbursement.
Seems pretty slanderous to accuse hospitals of that without some actual proof. Oh and it would also be insurance fraud.
This new right wing talking point that sick people who also get Covid shouldn’t be considered Covid deaths is really stupid. If you have stage 4 lung cancer and you die in a car crash driving to your chemo appointment, guess what the cause of death is?
Hospitals are billing machines. I’ll give you an example. Person gets in a car crash goes to the ER. Er admissions takes his insurance card and asks how were you hurt? I was in a car crash. Bam. Separate pile. Hospital then refuses to run his insurance and instead sends a lien letter to lawyer to get paid out of the proceeds of the case. Even tho the guy had health insurance. Why? Because they didn’t like the reimbursement rates they got from health insurance and think they can get more money from the settlement.
Hospitals are in business to make money and will manipulate coding, billing, liens, anything and everything they can do to get the most they can from their inflated bills.
You are spot on with this. Medicine is inundated with consultants who teach hospitals and doctors how to maximize reimbursement with creative coding. While I haven’t done the research, I strongly suspect that hospital reimbursement rates are increased if COVID is coded instead of pneumonia.
Fee for service and coding is its own problem regarding the cost of care. We need to address this but the AMA throws a fit every time it comes up.
Do we know that Covid deaths are coded at a higher reimbursement rate? I don’t care what a lawyer strongly suspects.
Edit to answer my own question. Yes the Medicare reimbursement was increased via legislation and no there is no evidence of fraud by hospitals.
Q: Are hospitals inflating the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths so they can be paid more?
A: Recent legislation pays hospitals higher Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients and treatment, but there is no evidence of fraudulent reporting.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/
Edit to answer my own question. Yes the Medicare reimbursement was increased via legislation and no there is no evidence of fraud by hospitals.
Q: Are hospitals inflating the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths so they can be paid more?
A: Recent legislation pays hospitals higher Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients and treatment, but there is no evidence of fraudulent reporting.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/
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For sure. A nice first step was the hospital bill transparency act or whatever the hell it’s called. The most marked way to see the cost of service as it relates to care is to compare a guy who treats at his local hospital vs a military base. The military base bill will literally be 80 percent less for the exact same care. The inflation and manipulation that goes on at hospitals is ridiculous. And this says nothing of the fact that the dr treating probably belongs to a physician’s group and you’re going to get a separate bill from that outfit.
Why do you keep saying fraud? No one is saying fraud. They are manipulating the system. They are financially incentivized to call something Covid vs pneumonia.
Intentionally miscoding a diagnosis for higher payment is fraud - link
There is a 20% bump-up to the DRG payment for treating COVID. This is going to be an area for audits.
